The Villain Olympics- Chapter Five

TW: Anger, mentions of blood and knives, guilt.

Chapter Five- Samantha- The Five Stages of Grief- Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Sarcasm, Acceptance.

A monster. That’s what I was. Not a hero, not some savior of the city. A monster.

And of course Kat had been enough of an idiot to jump- with a knife in her side- and tear the wound open even further.

But I put the knife in myself. I knew that. It was my fault, a dirty trick that would never have been expected. And I’d left her bleeding on the ground, mumbling about paint colors for my kitchen.

Monster, monster, monster. It was a chorus inside my head, ringing from dawn to dusk.

So I decided to settle it, if not to just lower the volume by a notch.

I tracked down one of Kat’s on and off partners, someone she wasn’t in too bad of a relationship with. Brett. From Finance. You see, as if being mutuals and arch nemesis wasn’t bad enough, we worked in the very same building.

I spotted him in the coffee shop, slouching over his laptop, sipping a mug of pure espresso. There was stubble on his chin, and he looked more drawn than usual, which was saying a lot.

“Hi there,” I said, waving slightly as I sat myself across from him. I put on a casual, if not bright, smile and tucked my backpack under my seat.

“Hey, Samantha,” he responded, not looking up from his computer. Reading glasses turned his barely-twenty face into that of a forty-five year old, and he frowned at whatever he was reading. Oh, boy.

“How’s it going?” I asked, my voice strained. He hummed non-commitaly in response.

“Hey, I was wondering,” I started, pushing a frosted donut over. “If you’ve seen Katrina today. Or, anyday, since the weekend.” I smiled blandly, hoping that the donut would get him to look up from his screen.

He sighed and stared up at me. It worked. “Oh, jeez, yeah. I haven’t seen Kit-Kat in days. She never gets sick. Why, do you know where she is?”

I smiled stiffly, though it probably looked more like a wince. “Nope. Just wondering.” Blood rushed in my ears as I thought about him calling her Kit-Kat. What a stupid name. To make matters worse, I could vaguely remember her ranting about it to Chad and I, telling us how much she hated it over an awkward dinner. My blood boiled.

“Ok, can I work now?” He asked annoyedly, not even thanking me for the donut. You despicable barnacle from the most northern edges of hell-

I bit my tongue to control all the expletives roaring to escape, not wanting a debacle with HR.

My blood continued to boil as I left the coffee shop, the anger now turned at myself.

I’d left Kat to die that day.